Fortune of Fear Read online

  Wait a minute. My documents were in the grip. I needed a passport. The Achmed Ben Nutti diplomatic passport from the United Arab League was on top of the pile. It would get my guns and money through to wherever I was going. I put it in my pocket. Money. I didn’t have any money. I must avoid Afyon: they would be waiting for me with a pile of lethal rocks and stones. I had it. I must get to Istanbul. Mudur Zengin would welcome the chance to give me money.

  As an afterthought, working fast, I closed and locked my safe and secret compartments. I must get out of here. They might come for me at any minute.

  I picked up my grip. I forced myself to stop shaking. I walked across the patio and into the yard.

  With a surge of purest hate, I saw the taxi driver. He was polishing the new Mercedes-Benz.

  Apparatus training makes one rise to any emergency. The hate distilled into the purest cunning. I determined then and there to kill two jailbirds with one bomb. They would learn in one last agonizing flash the penalty for grabbing women before I could get at them.

  Cunning. Cunning. Cunning. I must concentrate on that. I went over and threw my bag carelessly into the Daimler-Benz. I did not even let my eyes dart under every bush to see if they were waiting for me, ready to spring out and stone me to death.

  In an offhand voice, I called, “Oh, Ahmed. Would you like to come to the bank with me to get some money?”

  He sprang gladly upright. I knew he would. He yelled for Ters and then raced around and got in the front seat of the big car. Ters ran out of the kitchen, putting on his old soldier’s cap. He slid under the wheel.

  We were off. I scrunched way down so nobody could see I was riding in the back.

  We went tearing up the road to Afyon, scattering camels all over the place.

  I could tell from the gay, insouciant manner of both Ahmed and Ters that they had no slightest inkling that this was their last day on Earth.

  We entered Afyon and started down the street toward the Piastre Bankasi Branch.

  “No, no,” I said smoothly from the back. “You misunderstood me. I was talking about BIG money. I meant the Piastre Bankasi in Istanbul. Go there.”

  Happily, without the least suspicion they were driving their own hearse, they turned and we began to roar along the main highway to Istanbul.

  Glancing backward from time to time, I detected no pursuit. I had been too fast for them. I might get away with this yet.

  Several camels looked at us suspiciously, however, and some of my anxiety returned. Never trust a camel.

  Ters was not driving very fast. But that was just as well. High speed would alert people that I was escaping.

  The afternoon and the bleak February countryside moved along. Dusk came. We drove in the darkness. Our headlights flicked now and then upon the ruins of the ages. I was leaving Asia. Let it rot. It wasn’t worth conquering anyway. Alexander’s adventures had been but a waste of time.

  We crossed the Bosporus into Europe about ten. We finally crossed the Galata Bridge over the Golden Horn and wove our way through the dying streets of Istanbul. We came at last to the Piastre Bankasi. The car came to a stop.

  I intended to have the inevitable night watchman call Mudur Zengin. I had gotten this far and I was safe. But this was the end of the line for Ters and Ahmed. I slipped a time bomb with a plunger fuse under the cushion of the rear seat. I depressed the plunger. Ten minutes from now, this car and its villainous occupants would spatter all over the landscape in bits of dismayed and burning flame. Bye-bye, you woman grabbers.

  I tossed my grip out onto the sidewalk. I got out. I said casually, “You can go home now. I won’t be needing you.”

  “Don’t you want us to take you to the airport?” said Ahmed.

  “Airport?” I said. “What gave you the idea I was leaving Turkey? I’m just going to be in town three or four days, attending a convention of drug pushers at the Istanbul Hilton. You didn’t think I would pay to keep you two in a hotel all that time, did you? So bye-bye. You’re homeward bound,” to whatever Hells they reserve for criminals who grab women first and then threaten to testify that it was all at my orders.

  Ahmed shrugged. Ters gave his evil laugh. And away they went. I watched their taillights fade out of sight. It gave me a great deal of satisfaction. There wouldn’t even be enough left of them to bury, for that was a Voltar maximum-destruction pocket bomb.

  A moving shadow called my attention suddenly back to my own peril. But it was just the watchman.

  “Phone Mudur Zengin for me,” I ordered. “Have him come down to the bank. Say Sultan Bey wants to see him.”

  The watchman shined a flashlight in my face. Then he pointed to an upper window. It was lighted. “He’s already here,” the watchman said. “Came in half an hour ago and said he was expecting you.”

  A chill went through me. Then I realized it was true. The credit companies kept an accurate, to-the-minute check on the whereabouts of the paying man. They had told Zengin.

  I must be fast. I raced inside. I entered his office.

  Coldly, Mudur Zengin remained at his desk eyeing me. He did not rise. He did not even say hello. He just sat there and looked at me. I stopped in the middle of the room.

  “I’ve been requested to detain you,” Mudur Zengin said.

  Terror surged through me. They knew. They were after me!

  I went down on my knees. “Look, you were the boyhood friend of my father. Please don’t turn me in! You’ve got to help me. I need money!”

  “I can’t give you any money. The vaults are closed.”

  “Then let me into the safe-deposit boxes.”

  “I can’t. They’re closed tight. Nothing will be open until 9:00 AM tomorrow.”

  Too late. Too late! They would have dragged me halfway back to Afyon by then.

  “I need dollars!” I begged.

  “Dollars?” he said coldly. “Why don’t you ask your concubine for dollars?”

  “Mudur, please hear me. I need dollars and I need them right now. Tonight. FAST!”

  He fixed me with his cold banker’s eye. “The only dollars available at this time of night are not the bank’s. They are my own. I keep some in my personal safe.”

  “Give them to me,” I begged, my ear cocked for any sound of footsteps on the stairs. “Quick!”

  “It would only be enough to tide you over,” he said. “And it would have to be at regular terms: 30 percent interest per month.”

  He pushed a piece of paper at me. I swiftly signed it.

  He went to his safe, opened it and took out some packets of US dollars, counted off a hundred thousand and then tossed them on the floor and pushed them toward me with his foot.

  I bent to grab them. I stuffed them in my pocket. Then I saw the contempt in his eyes. It struck me that he was certainly behaving in an unfriendly way. Rushed as I was, I still said, “What have I done?”

  “What you have done,” he said, “is between you and Allah. It is not given to a mere mortal to comprehend the actions of such as you.”

  He walked over and gave me a shove toward the door. “Good night and, I hope, goodbye.”

  PART FORTY

  Chapter 8

  As I stole out of the bank, I knew my problem was threefold:

  A. Get out of Turkey.

  B. Not get caught.

  C. Cover up my trail.

  In terms of pure theory, it seemed elementary. In fact, the Apparatus continually pounded (B) and (C) into one. They were the basis of practically every operating plan.

  But theory is one thing and being in the middle of the night in Istanbul, Earth, surrounded by skulking enemies and pursued relentlessly by pitiless women who had noses like bloodhounds, was something else.

  The minarets of a thousand mosques stood around me with pointing fingers. The very clouds were liable to open and drown the world with the voice of the Prophet hollowly commanding that the words in his Qur’an be followed: STONE THE ADULTERER TO DEATH!

  Spooky. You can never tel
l about these primitive religions. They might come true suddenly. The very towers of the mosques might cave in on me to do just that.

  I kept my wits. I had to. Nobody else would want them. Gods, how I had been taken in by those women!

  Looking up and down the street, I saw that Mudur must have miscalculated. He would want me under obligation on a note before he called the police. I would outwit him!

  Running like a hare, clutching my bag to my chest, I got the blazes out of that district.

  I ducked and dodged down numerous alleyways and streets. No pursuit yet. As I ran, I laid my careful plans to escape and cover my tracks.

  Ahead I saw a small and mean hotel. I slowed to a sauntering gait. I had a cunning plan for the first stage. Police, when they want to trap a criminal they expect to be in a hotel, surround it. They would think I was inside when I was outside, and I would be able to detect them.

  I went in. The clerk, if you could call him that, was sound asleep. I woke him up and told him I wanted a room. Without opening his eyes, he reached up, got a key and handed it to me.

  Stealthily, I went up some stairs. I found the room. I went in and hid my bag. There was a drain pipe. I slid down it.

  Through an alley I made my way up the hill to some always-open stalls around the Great Bazaar. There were no throngs at such an hour. Many shops were closed. But I soon found what I wanted: an Arab and Oriental clothing shop. The place smelled suffocatingly of mothballs and camels. A single electric bulb shone down on racks of tangled merchandise. I pawed through them. I was looking for a djellaba, a hooded cloak. I wanted the kind that Arab chieftains wear. I found one. It was of soft yellow wool. A bit ornate, since it had a border of embroidered gold thread, but it would have to do. I found a turban. I found some baggy pants. I found a gold-embroidered waistcoat and a shirt. I found a bandolier with lots of pouches.

  The proprietor, suspecting thieves, woke up. He was very fat and yawning. He looked at me strangely. He began to add up the items I had selected. He yawned. “Eighteen thousand lira,” he said.

  “Nine thousand lira,” I said.

  Then he did something very suspicious. He shrugged and nodded! He did not try to bargain! I knew what that meant. He was hoping to lull my natural alarm.

  I got out a bill. My Gods! Mudur Zengin had only given me thousand-dollar bills!

  I had no choice. I had to give it to him.

  “I’ll have to wake up Muchmud the moneylender next door to get the change,” he said. My suspicions were confirmed! He was trying to detain me!

  I was very cool, however. “Go ahead,” I said.

  He was gone for over five minutes! I knew he had called the police. He said, “Here is your change. Ninety-one thousand lira.” It was an awful wad. It contained small bills. He thought I would delay long enough to count it. I would fool him. I didn’t. I shoved it in the bundle.

  He looked at me strangely. Then it hit me what this was really all about. He was making sure he would have my full description. He knew what clothes I had bought. He would tell the women what they were when they came to question him.

  I was up to it. I executed Item (C). I would cover my trail.

  While he was lying down again on his couch, I pretended to have trouble tying up my bundle. I bent over and slid a time bomb underneath a clothing rack. I pushed the plunger.

  I walked out.

  I went down the hill. I did not run.

  Ten minutes went by.

  KERUMPH! BLOWIE!

  The shop and a lot of others around it flew into the sky in a pyre of orange flame. The concussion broke a window near me.

  That part of the trail was covered. The women would never get my description out of him!

  I felt reassured. But I remained very watchful. I approached the hotel. There were no police around it. My trap had not been sprung. Probably they were merely late. I had better be quick.

  I scaled the drain pipe. It was only four feet long. I got back into the room.

  Way off up the hill I could hear police and ambulance sirens going. A good diversion. Maybe that was why they had not come to the hotel. Clever of me.

  I opened my suitcase. I took off my Western clothes. I got into the balloon pants and shirt and vest. I put the bandolier over my shoulder. I put my military boots back on. I tied the turban and got into the djellaba. Quite a change!

  I transferred the remaining bombs and US money to the pouches of the bandolier. I got my diplomatic passport and put that in a pouch. I stuffed the wads of Turkish money into my waistband: it was far too lumpy for the bandolier containers.

  I repacked the suitcase with the clothes I had taken off. Then, with sudden decision, I took out a Beretta Model 81/84 .380 caliber. It was a lightweight pocket size and it held thirteen rounds in its magazine. I put it in the inside pocket of the djellaba. I looked around. I had left nothing in the room. I strapped my grip back up.

  Now I would cover my trail.

  I took a time bomb, put it under the mattress and pushed the plunger.

  I went downstairs. The clerk did not fool me. He was pretending to be asleep. I would look very ordinary: I laid the key and a hundred-lira note on the desk. I sauntered out.

  There were no police around. My distraction in the Great Bazaar had worked. Flames were really shooting up over there.

  Not attracting attention to myself, I walked at normal pace through alleys in the direction of a thoroughfare.

  I found a cab. I woke the driver up and got in. I would red-herring my trail. I said loudly, “Take me to the Istanbul Sheraton.”

  He drove off.

  KERUMPH! BLOWIE!

  The hotel went up!

  I had covered that part of my trail.

  Geysers of orange flame bulged into the sky.

  The cab slewed slightly with concussion.

  “What was that?” the hacker said.

  Aha. Trying to get information to tell the women later! I would handle that.

  We drove along. He started into a shortcut up a narrow and deserted street. “Stop here a moment,” I said.

  He braked.

  I hit him over the head with the Beretta butt. He fell sideways.

  I got out. I pushed him onto the floor in front. I got in and started up the cab. I knew where I was going. It was not the Istanbul Sheraton, Gods forbid! I had to get out of Turkey.

  I knew where I was. I headed for a ferry pier on the Golden Horn.

  I passed mosque after mosque. Istanbul is absolutely crowded with mosques. All ready to fall over and stone one to death at the command of the Prophet. Nerve-wracking. But I held on to my nerve.

  The ferry pier was deserted at this time of night. I knew it would be. I got out. I removed my bag. I put the taxi in low gear. I walked beside it, steering. I stepped away.

  Roar—SPLASH!

  The waves raced outward in the dark.

  Bubbles came up from the sinking cab.

  I had covered one more part of my trail.

  I ran back and got my grip. I knew exactly where I was bound now.

  Speeding along the shore paths which ran perpendicular to the jutting piers, I came to a jammed fleet of fish boats.

  I halted. There was enough ambient light from the city and enough paths of it across the water for me to make out exactly what I wanted.

  At the end of the nest lay a vessel about ninety feet long. It had the exaggerated height of bow and stern compared to the waist that characterized the smaller ships which plied the Sea of Marmara. She had the high masts which permitted her to let out nets, and even sail on occasion. By the dock light I could see that she had a yellow and black triple stripe which ran the length of her gunwale, making an exaggerated curve. That she had been pushed out to the edge of this cluster told me that she was waiting there to go to sea at dawn.

  I stepped down onto the nearest deck. I clambered from gunwale to gunwale, the boats rocking and groaning in the otherwise quiet night. I got to the edge of my choice. I saw the name. It was
Sanci. That checked me for a moment. Sanci, in Turkish, means “stomachache.” I don’t like the sea any more than I like space.

  But stern duty called.

  I went aboard.

  There was a little house toward the stern, sitting in the smell of fish. I pushed open a door.

  A huge Turk was snoring on his back. He was the biggest Turk I had ever seen. So he must be the captain.

  I fanned him awake. I did it very cleverly. A fistful of spread lira can make quite a breeze.

  He woke up in midsnore. His eyes riveted on the lira.

  “Sail now,” I said, “and take me to the Greek mainland, and it is yours.”

  That brought him up, sitting, with only one scratch at his chest hair.

  “How much?” he said.

  “Forty thousand lira,” I said.

  “Eighty thousand lira,” he said.

  “Seventy thousand,” I said, “if you shove off right this minute.”

  He got off his bunk and reached for his coat and cap. “I go to wake the crew now,” he said, but he kept on standing there.

  I took the hint. I counted out thirty thousand lira. “You get the other forty just before you put me on the beach.”

  He took it with a grunt and went to wake the crew.

  Shortly the ship began to bob with activity. They were shortening up their lines, ready to cast off.

  I looked at those other craft that I had walked across. One of them might have had a watchman who had seen me.

  I could take no chances.

  “Just a moment,” I told the captain. “I think I left something on the dock.”

  I stepped swiftly across the intervening decks. I gained the pier. There was a small house there.

  I took out a time bomb. I set it for long fuse, half an hour. I laid it under the edge of the hut door and pushed the plunger. I stepped back across the boats and to the ship.

  They cast off.

  The engine barked and sputtered and complained. The screw churned a wake. We sailed down the Golden Horn. We rounded Seraglio Point. The Ataturk Monument loomed in silhouette against a strangely illuminated sky.

  KEROOMP! THUD!

  Masked by the point and monument, the bomb flash painted an already blazing sky.